MOST antiquities in Britain are either stolen or fake — according to Paul Craddock, a scientist at the British Museum. His controversial claim, earlier this year at a conference in London on art crime, prompted an immediate reaction from Professor Norman Palmer, chairman of the Illicit Trade Advisory Panel (Itap), who denied that the level of illicit trade was at anything like this level.

The debate is not just an academic one. Since the United Kingdom art market has an estimated annual worth of £500 million, a loss of confidence caused by issues of integrity could have significant economic consequences.

The debate is a timely reminder of the problem, however; and it highlights the question: is the UK doing enough to tackle it?

In the fight against trafficked antiquities, it is the Italians who are presently hitting the headlines. Last December, an art dealer Giacomo Medici was sentenced to ten years by a court in Italy for supplying stolen art to Sotheby’s. Police recovered 10,000 looted objects from his warehouse. Then, in May, Italian prosecutors also indicted Marion True, a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, on charges of conspiring to receive stolen goods involving a separate investigation. The charges are denied.

The UK, too, has brought successful proceedings against traffickers. In 1997 Jonathan Tokely-Parry was sentenced to six years for his part in an international conspiracy involving Egyptian antiquities that also led to convictions in Cairo and New York.

The market in illicit antiquities is international and, along with trafficking in arms and drugs, it is a widespread crime. In the global picture, London and Geneva have long been suspected as significant centres through which stolen items pass, but the UK has been slower than others in reacting to the problem.

It has been more than 20 years since Unesco implemented the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in 1970. The UK did not accept it until October 2002.

The convention applies to cultural items illicitly exported from one of the 107 contracting states to another after the date on which the convention came into force in both states. In that event, the convention provides for the return of the stolen item.

To further assist in countering the problem, the convention requires contracting states to adopt domestic systems and legislation. So, as part of our accession process, the Government asked Itap to report on the UK position and to propose steps that could be taken to prevent the trade here.

Itap made three primary recommendations: to accept the convention; to implement a new criminal offence; and to establish a national database of stolen cultural items.

Historically, the criminal offences combating the trade were limited to handling stolen goods or, if a false customs declaration had been detected, to a prosecution under the Customs and Excise Management Act.

Itap considered this inadequate and, acting on its recommendation, the Government brought in the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act (the Act) on December 30, 2003. The Act makes it an offence for any person dishonestly to deal in a cultural object knowing or believing that it is tainted. On conviction this carries a prison sentence of up to seven years and/or an unlimited fine.

The definition of cultural objects includes anything of historical, architectural or archaeological interest. To become tainted they must have been excavated or removed, after December 30, 2003, either from this country or elsewhere in a way that constitutes a crime here or overseas.

The first prosecution is awaited but the Act already has two areas of potential concern. First, it cannot be used retrospectively against traffickers dealing in items removed before December 2003. This, for example, renders it ineffective against those trafficking items looted from the Iraqi National Museum in April 2003.

Besides this, there is the inherent difficulty in proving guilty knowledge or belief. A more aggressive measure might have imposed a greater burden on traders to establish that items could not have been stolen before being able to acquire them safely.

The Act will have teeth only if there is adequate intelligence about stolen cultural items as was recommended by Itap. It is here that the UK has made the least progress. Although it was proposed in December 2000, there is still no database. A 2004 Select Committee described the lack of progress as “lamentable”. Although the Government has promised progress, it remains silent on what progress has been made.

Although Professor Palmer and Dr Craddock may disagree about the scale of the problem, some problem clearly does exist. It is therefore ironic that, in the post 9/11 world of money-laundering compliance, it may still be easier to deal in trafficked antiquities in Britain than it is to open a high street bank account.

The author is a partner in fraud and regulatory investigations at Russell Jones & Walker in London

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